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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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 Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:18 pm Post subject: HDV vs. AVC |
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AVC (Advance Video Codec) is obviously the consumer format of the future and HDV is on its way out. So why would I buy a new HDV camera now?
Two main reasons:
1) HDV looks better.
2) HDV tape is a better archive medium.
There a few things you should be aware of though.
HDV looks better than current AVC cameras, but that will change. AVC is a more sophisticated codec that has the potential of producing much better images than HDV at the same bit rate. The limiting factor in AVC cameras right now is their processing power. When cheaper, more powerful processors are used in AVC cameras, they will produce much better images. As I said, AVC has great potential, but it's not there yet. In a year's time, I'm sure it will be there.
As far as archiving goes, magnetic tape (such as mini-DV) has been proven to have a shelf life of at least a couple of decades. The movement towards AVC, however, is accompanied with a movement towards tapeless, hard drive based recording. The big plus of this, is that your footage can be transferred into your computer for editing much faster than an HDV tape can.
The big down side is how do you archive your footage? With HDV, your original tape is your archive. You can delete all the footage off your computer, knowing that if you ever need to go back to it, it still exists on tape.
Some might argue that the cost of hard drives is constantly dropping, so all you have to do is transfer your footage to an external drive and throw it on a shelf. What most people are not aware of, is that hard drives have a very poor shelf life. If they are not used for an extended amount of time, the barrings can seize and the drive will not spin up the next time you try to use it. It is feasible that this can happen in as little time as a year! So hard drives are totally out of the question as an archival medium.
Currently the preferred medium for data archive is magnetic tape.
Ironically, anyone who wants to go with a tapeless work flow will have to end up back on tape somehow for archival purposes.
That's a big reason why I chose to go with a tape bases system. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 1:02 pm Post subject: UPDATE |
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Well, it's a year later and from what I'm hearing, AVC now has comparable image quality to HDV. It still has the problem of how do you archive it.
An one hour mini-DV tape holds about 12 Gigs of data. Since they run at near the same data rates, we can say an hour of AVC is also about 12 Gigs of data.
If you want to archive your AVC data to DVD it will take 3 disks per hour. It's doable, but burning all those disks sounds like a pain in the ass to me.
The solution seems to be Blu-ray writable media. A single layered Blu-ray disk holds 25 Gigs. You can fit 2 hours of top quality AVC on one of those.
A year ago, when the previous post was made, Blu-ray media and drives were still pretty pricey and weren't an affordable solution. But now, as with all things computer related, the price has come down significantly.
So the reasons not to buy an AVC camera are almost non-existent now.
Just beware that you can't really rest easy until your footage is saved to DVD or Blu-ray. I would recommended that as soon as you transfer your footage from your AVD camcorder onto your computer's hard drive, burn it to DVD or Blu-ray immediately. One bad hard drive can cause your entire project to disappear, and that's a scary thought.
Another thing to keep in mind is that AVC is still a processor heavy codec. You'll want to get the most powerful desktop computer you can afford to work with it. I suspect that the average laptop is a bit on the weak side and will have trouble editing AVC without some lagging. |
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